Enabling SIS Integration with Blackbaud OnRecord

Enabling SIS (Syncing Blackbaud and Vidigami User Data)

Once Blackbaud has installed Vidigami for your school, please follow the steps below to continue the setup on your end.

Please note that in order to perform the required tasks in your school’s portal, you would need to have the Platform Manager role. If you are not this individual or are unsure of who to refer to, please contact your school’s IT coordinator or director.

Reminder: Blackbaud charges a fixed annual fee to set up this integration. To learn more about how it will be invoiced, please contact your Vidigami CSS or the Blackbaud administrator for your school.

If you are a returning school (meaning that you have already onboarded users to your Vidigami system) the first and most important step to complete before the sync is to ensure that your Blackbaud User IDs assigned to every user in your Core database are identical to theVidigami Host IDs assigned to those corresponding users in your VidigamiUsers List.

This is critical in order to perform the initial handshake between both systems, avoid mismatched or duplicate accounts for users , and on the whole, ensure a timely and successful sync of all your data.

If you are unsure if all User IDs are properly matched to their respective Vidigami Host IDs, please provide a list of all your users with their old IDs (which you would have provided as part the previous year’s onboarding process) matched to their User ID in your Blackbaud system. We will make sure to update the IDs on Vidigami before we proceed with the sync.

You will now need to login to Core as the Vidigami Manager role you created in Step 2. Navigate to the login page of your portal by using the URL provided (simply replace “schoolname” with your portal’s subdomain and ensure the value ‘53217’ is included at the end of the URL):

What Happens After Syncing?

Once your CSS has completed the sync, they will first provide you with a report that includes the number of:

Users who have been successfully imported to Vidigami from Blackbaud

Any users who might have been blocked from being imported. This may be due to the following user error:

Vidigami currently requires a unique email per account. That means if there are parents in your Blackbaud system sharing a single email address, they will not be imported through the sync as they will be regarded as duplicates. Vidigami cannot determine which parent the email will need to be assigned to, therefore, neither one of the parents will be imported. While we are currently working to develop a better solution for this, we encourage you to ask families with shared email addresses to update their information accordingly on your school’s portal before we proceed with the sync.

2 – Group Memberships

Following a successful sync, certain users will be automatically organized into specific groups in Vidigami. These groups serve as placeholders for users each time we sync your Blackbaud data with Vidigami, therefore, they should never be deleted.

Based on the graduation year indicated in their record, students will be placed in Grad Year Groups or Grade Groups under the Academics category of your school’s Group Directory in Vidigami.

Based on each students’ connection to one or more parent or guardian, parents will be added to their child’s Grade Group.

Faculty is added to a Faculty Group under the Internal category.

If another sync is made afterwards, the same groups will be recreated. If you would like to change your group structure to a custom one that works best for your organization (e.g. using classes or divisions), simply provide us with a Group Membership list that includes where each user belongs. We can then use this list to manually update user memberships. Contact your CSS to learn more.

Creating Vidigami Link In Your Portal (Optional)

Once we have successfully synced both databases, you can then choose to create a Vidigami link (post) on your school’s Resource Board. This will essentially provide your community with another channel to easily access Vidigami. Upon clicking this link, the user will be prompted to set up a one-time password, which the system will them remember moving forward. This is known as SSO (Single Sign On) in the Blackbaud system.

Creating the Vidigami Link Category

Secure this link to the Vidigami Manager role you created in Step 2. The Vidigami link category is set to secure to this role only.

Save & Add Link, naming itVidigami.

Choose the resource, Vidigami, from the dropdown options provided and save your changes.

A Page Manager or Content Manager at the school will need to edit the security of this link category to make it visible to the appropriate role(s). Once you change the security, you should confirm that the link works correctly by logging in as a parent user of Vidigami.

Once SSO is enabled and tested, you can can now make the Link Category visible to the appropriate role(s) and then place it within the designated Vidigami Resource Post (see Step 5).

Important note: SSO was enabled for at least one role, so a Vidigami Manager will need to adjust this accordingly. To do so, please replace “schoolname” with your school’s app subdomain and ensure 53217 is included at the end of the following URL: https://schoolname.myschoolapp.com/podium/default.aspx?t=53217. Click on the link, login and edit the settings accordingly.

You’re almost there! Once you are confident that everything is tested and working, let your Vidigami Client Success Specialist (CSS) know, so we can review everything before you launch Vidigami to your community members.

FAQs

Q: If there is Blackbaud SSO in place, does that mean users will not have to create a separate Vidigami account?

A: No. The SSO that Blackbaud offers is simply a link that remembers user’s password when they log in for the first time on the web app. This means school members would have to create a Vidigami password and put it in at least once after clicking on the Vidigami Resource Post in your portal. After this, the system will always remember their account. Blackbaud does not support SSO on the Vidigami mobile app, therefore users will have to have to separately login to Vidigami on their mobile devices.

Q: We are a returning school, and we’ve customized groups in our school to have a more class-based, as opposed to grade-based structure. Will we be able to sync and keep our class-based group structure?

A: Unfortunately, syncing with your SIS system will map over your groups in a “Class of 2019” based format. This means that each time you sync, you will need to adjust your group memberships. We recommend reaching out to your CSS to discuss the best way to proceed prior to syncing.

Q: Is the Blackbaud SIS/SSO Integration fee charged on an annual or one-time basis?

A: The fee for this integration is an annual $300 fee charged to us by Blackbaud for each school.

Q: I’m not sure how to enable this integration. Who can I connect with at my school to help me with this?

A: We suggest starting with your IT team or seeking out the member(s) of your school who are responsible for maintaining your school’s Student Information System (SIS). Once you have found the right person, feel free to connect them to your Vidigami CSS to discuss the process.